Politics.

What is the Czech Republic’s governmental structure? Who’s the President? Let’s talk politics.

The Czech Republic is a multi-party parliamentary representative democratic republic with a two-chamber system. The two chambers are the Chamber of Deputies (Poslanecká sněmovna) and the Senate (Senát).

The President, currently Vaclav Klaus, is the head of state. He is elected by both chambers for a period of five years; if confirmed in office the maximum is two succeeding terms. The President is also commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces. The Prime Minister, Mirek Topolánek, is head of government, exercising supreme executive power.

First president appointee after the founding of the state in 1993 was Václav Havel; he remained in office until 2003. His successor, Václav Klaus, was elected in 2003 and confirmed in office in this year’s elections.

Klaus was the former leader of the conservative democratic national party (ODS) which is currently the strongest party in the coalition, followed by the Christ-democrats (KDU-CSL) and the Greens.

Prague, as the capital, is the seat of the government, parliament and the president. Since the Czech Republic was decentralized in 2003 constituting fourteen separate districts, called kraje, Prague is governed by the Local Government of the Capital of Prague headed by a council and a mayor. Prague’s present mayor is Pavel Bém elected 2002.

Regarding political tendencies in Prague, it can be recorded that the capital’s voters have since 1989 decided for right-of-center parties, to a larger percentage than other provinces have done.